Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

The Oscar telecast is over, which means it’s time for people to remark freely on all things Hurt Locker and Avatar for the next few minutes, and hopefully a Basterd or two will appear.….

Got that out of your system? Good. As your Sgt., I feel it is my duty to brief you on the telecast. There’s so much to discuss, but I’ll break my report into two sections: 1) The Awards — the worthy and the shocking; 2) The production — the useless and the touching. Sometimes, they blend.

AWARDS:

(By the way, I turned out to be spot-on with my predictions, even with Cinematography(Avatar?) )

• HURT LOCKER MADNESS: Not a lot of surprises in the main categories. The Hurt Locker picked up SIX awards out of nine nominations, a strong haul for a film that barely made it into 600 theaters in America and was made for 1/250th (give or take) the budget of Avatar. Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Film Editing. I don’t have a problem with most of these awards, but the editing of the intertwined storytelling in District 9 should have emerged victorious, and Inglourious Basterds showcased better writing than any film in recent memory. The Hurt Locker had the momentum of winning nearly every major award this season, and the “David” angle in the “David vs. Goliath” scenario that Avatar created. Happy or not, like it or not, The Hurt Locker is the victor. (Screenplay?!)

(*Note: I’ve gone on and read some other pundits and reporters write-ups who say that Hurt Locker will be forgotten ten, twenty years from now, but that Avatar will be the one film remembered. To them I say…okay. When Annie Hall beat Star Wars in the 70s, people were saying the same thing; when Forrest Gump beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption, people, again, were saying the same thing. And look how well the “losers” have withstood the test of time. But we’re not talking about twenty years from now, we’re talking about NOW — or, to be more specific, last year.*)

On to other awards and items of interest…

All acting awards were predictable and mostly worthy. Kudos to Sandra Bullock, who won for a mediocre role in a less than mediocre movie, but who gains “classy points” because she picked up her Razzy Award the night before the Oscars (the Golden Razzies, for those uninitiated, are handed out every year for the “worst in film.”) It’s her sense of humor…that’s why they like her.

Fisher Stevens has an Oscar. Let that marinate.

Fisher’s Oscar: 20 years in the making.

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire surprisingly beat Up in the Air for longest unnecessary title Best Screenplay. Also defeated:  District 9. I like how Geoffrey Fletcher’s reaction was honest-to-God shock. That’s how you accept an award.

Someone needs to explain, and I mean right now, how Avatar wins for Best Cinematography.…I’ll wait.

It’s a shame that District 9’s visual effects achievements got overshadowed by Avatar, but what can you do?

THE PRODUCTION:

• Hosts: Twice the hosts, twice the fun. You’re producing the Oscars, you decide to have TWO hosts this year: Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. What do you do? Give them a semi-comical monologue and then pull out the magician’s hat and make them disappear for the rest of the show. Seriously, were it not for an occasional quip by Martin when introducing a presenter, I wouldn’t have known the show had a host this year, let alone two of them.

(Watch their monologue here.)

Angle’s Angle: More screen time for any host, one or two!

• CONSTANT CONTACT: Meryl Streep and George Clooney were the two major cutaways all evening, a fact recognized by Clooney when he waved the camera away at one point.

Angle’s Angle: I appreciate the cutaway to an audience member as much as the next person, but give us some variety, give us some change. I don’t want to see Clooney wave us away, but I also don’t want to watch him watching the show for three hours.

• JOHN HUGHES TRIBUTE: The class of the simple introduction by Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick became lopsided and dull when, after the montage of Hughes’ classic scenes, members of the Brat Pack appeared on stage to say one thing each…and then walk away awkwardly like high school kids at a dance.

Angle’s Angle: Bring out the Pack first, then the clip reel. Move it right along.

• VISUALS: Best Cinematography Award is presented…without images or clips of the nominees. Best Actor/Actress awards are presented as follows: a brief montage of all nominees’ performances, five other actors talk up each nominee for not only acting well but being great people, then the presenter comes out, the presenter lists the nominees, the winner comes up and gives a speech which absolutely obliterates the :45 second rule. Total time to present Best Actress: ten minutes. Total for Best Actor: ten minutes. Total time wasted: eight minutes.

Angle’s Angle: SHOW A PIECE OF THE FILM’S NOMINATED. In an awards show dedicated to the visual medium, WHERE WERE THE VISUALS?? The chat-party that was featured last night did many things, all of them negative: Wasted time, deflated the energy in the latter half of an already body-less show, disrespected actors in the supporting categories by not giving them the same treatment earlier, and disrespected the audience at home who tuned in to WATCH a show, not listen to people TALK about how great things were last year. Also disrespected Cinematographers, who GIVE US THE IMAGES that later become iconic.

• BEST SONG: Perhaps one of the wisest decisions in this year’s Oscarcast, the show did away with live performances for each nominated song, instead crumbling the category into a simple presentation, featuring a ten-second clip of each song in the context of the movies they were in.

Angle’s Angle: Good choice.

• BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Nothing tops the appearance of Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman at the Academy Awards in 2001, playing themes from all nominees. Lasted five minutes, and was very moving. This year, as in a few years past, we got to sit through dancers interpreting all of the scores, no doubt from the mind of choreographer and co-producer of this year’s telecast Adam Shankman. Dances were okay, the music was moving.

Angle’s Angle: Shorten the dancing, lengthen the clips and celebrate the music. Itzhak returned four years ago for a solo run at this idea, but it wasn’t the same without Yo-Yo.…

That’s all for this year’s Oscar Telecast! Despite my disagreements with the way the producers produced, and the way the awards are awarded…I will still tune in next year, and the year after that, and I’ll continue to watch the films, the winners and the “happy just to be nominated.” Because that’s a Sgt.‘s duty.

Permission to speak freely in the comments below: Granted.

Sgt. Angle

Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

Shape up and sit down this coming Sunday, March 7, for the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, live on every coast imaginable. I’ll tell you my predictions for who will emerge victorious in a bit, but first a quick briefing about this year’s ceremony — what makes it “different” from recent years, what makes it similar, and the moments you need to look out for the most.

This year’s creative team and show producers are Adam Shankman and Mustache Man Bill Mechanic. Shankman’s work as a director is known by you, though you may not realize it: The Wedding Planner, A Walk to Remember, Cheaper by the Dozen, Hairspray. He is also a well-respected choreographer in both movies and theater, and promises to bring a light-hearted sense of humor to the proceedings (he also hired Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden to DJ the party during commercial breaks…yeah).

Bill Mechanic is former Chairman/CEO at Fox Studios, who was allegedly fired because Fight Club “flopped.” He has since produced The New World and Coraline.

Bruce Valanche is a veteran writer of the Oscars’ patter. He is back.

The show is bouncing off of last year’s mildly successful broadcast, which had the highest ratings in three years and was produced by Dreamgirls director Bill Condon. Condon declined to return, wanting to focus on his upcoming projects. Maybe it’s a good thing, but his decision could also prove fatal as Shankman and Mechanic are aiming to bring in the “younger crowd” by having the likes of Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart, Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus present a few awards.

Oscars are for closers.

The problem with the Academy’s aim for younger viewers is that the intentions are immediately contradicted in the choice of host — or, for this year, hosts — in Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Martin has hosted before, and Baldwin has seen a recent resurgence of popularity and exercising of his comedic chops on 30 Rock (an NBC program, you can be sure). Nevertheless, both are more familiar to an older crowd.

Rumors swirling in recent weeks have it that the Academy Board turned down the idea of Borat and Bruno star Sacha Baron Cohen as host of the Awards show, worrying that his brand of humor would somehow bring down the show’s pedigree. Because when you’re having the stars of Twilight and the non-acting-actors Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus present an award, you’re really turning up the talent factor.

For the record, Baron Cohen joins Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Ben Stiller, and Jason Bateman as presenters — all of whom are also potential hosts for future broadcasts.

There are other ways the producers are trying to bring in the audience this year — including an online vote to choose a designer for the outfit worn by the Award Escort — and these tactics only go on to prove that the Academy is now less concerned about actually honoring the best in the industry than they are about scoring ratings for the broadcast. Here’s hoping they don’t repeat the Round Robin of Super Compliments which plagued last year’s awards (five people to TALK about a performance without SHOWING us why Penelope Cruz deserved to win, or Heath Ledger, etc. This is a VISUAL MEDIUM!!!!!) Seriously. It took about 4 minutes to present each acting category, and there was nary a clip to show us why.…

But I digress.

On to the predictions!

You can get a full look at the nominees here. I will only cover a few select categories below, in the interest of space and time. Feel free to chat back below and tell me who you think should win. I want a full briefing on your reasons.

1. Best Actor: Jeff Bridges.

• Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
• George Clooney in “Up in the Air”
• Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
• Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
• Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”

Dark Horse: Jeremy Renner — An adrenaline junkie who diffuses bombs in Iraq, tuned perfectly to the material and setting, one with his environment.

2. Best Actress: Sandra Bullock

• Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
• Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
• Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
• Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
• Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”

Dark Horse: Helen Mirren — up against two rookies and Meryl Streep, who now gets a nomination because she woke up in the morning, Mirren has the strongest shot against the inexplicable front-runner that is Sandra Bullock.

(**Note that I won’t go into the supporting categories. If Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique do not win — for Inglourious Basterds and Precious, respectively — then I will eat my boots.**)

3. Best Animated Feature: UP. Up actually has a strong chance of winning best picture, but enough Academy members will still vote for it here. Secret of the Kells is the nominee out of nowhere, here, a little film that has yet to be released wide in the U.S.A. You can find the trailer here.

• “Coraline” Henry Selick
• “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
• “The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
• “The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
• “Up” Pete Docter

Dark Horse: Fantastic Mr. Fox. As amazing as Coraline looked, the throwback style of Wes Anderson’s Fox is enough to impress even the most adamant Pixar fan.

4. Cinematography: Though Inglourious Basterds featured some of the best camera work in recent memory, Avatar’s pioneering new 3D technology and dedication to world creation gives it the advantage here.

• “Avatar” Mauro Fiore
• “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel
• “The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd
• “Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson
• “The White Ribbon” Christian Berger

Dark Horse: Inglourious Basterds. Because there’s never a Tarantino film that fails to show you something unique.

Bigelow with her DGA Award.

5. Best Director: Bigelow all the way. She has the momentum, the DGA award, and The Hurt Locker is a strong film because of its’ direction more than anything else. Cameron certainly proves that dedication can make anything beautiful, but it’s not enough in a year where Bigelow can become the first woman to receive this Oscar. Standing ovations abound.

• “Avatar” James Cameron
• “The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow
• “Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino
• “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels
• “Up in the Air” Jason Reitman

Dark Horse: Tarantino. In a weird way, voters might cancel each other out in the duel between Cameron and Bigelow. Tarantino could emerge the deserving victor.

6. Best Picture: The Hurt Locker. It currently has the momentum, and voters may feel that Avatar’s technical achievements greatly outweigh any overall story or feeling in Cameron’s opus.

• “Avatar”
• “The Blind Side”
• “District 9”
• “An Education”
• “The Hurt Locker”
• “Inglourious Basterds”
• “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
• “A Serious Man”
• “Up”
• “Up in the Air”

Dark Horse: Up. Seriously. Precious is too bleak and lost steam in the recent campaigns. Up in the Air is highly regarded, yet is recognized as a manufactured film (made for awards), A Serious Man is a nod to the respected Coen Bros., An Education is similar to Up in the Air in its’ intentions, District 9 remains a genre pick, though its’ presence here is definitely worth something, and I’m still under the belief that The Blind Side is the result of a huge practical joke. Inglourious Basterds re-wrote WWII history, and, though it’s Tarantino’s best since Pulp Fiction, it hasn’t got the regard that Hurt Locker does. Up, being only the second animated film nominated for Best Picture in history (first was Beauty and the Beast) is very well-respected, very entertaining, and people most remember the first ten minutes as pure genius storytelling in pictures — no dialogue needed!

Enjoy the show, and until next time,

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

Last night was the People’s Choice Awards.  I wouldn’t normally watch it, but a dear friend of mine with a terminal illness and an affliction for fuckery happens to work for the show and asked me to tune in, so I did.  For maybe five minutes.  Then they announced the first winner in the Best Comedy category, which we’ll get to in a minute, and I turned it off.

Now the People’s Choice Awards claims to be a unique show in that they listen to fans (taken from their website):  The People’s Choice Awards celebrates fan favorites in music, movies and television and is the only major awards show where real people — not industry insiders — determine the nominees and winners, setting it apart from other awards shows.

That’s not entirely true…  You see, they don’t speak to all the fans, or go off of a movie’s gross ticket sales, or a TV show’s ratings, or anything like that — they just let people go to the site and vote.  Seems simple and fair, right?  No.  It’s not.  You see, the overwhleming demographic of voters are pre-teens in braces with a hankering to be loud and obnoxious — the rest of us are working or don’t care.  What irks me is that the celebrities who leave with these awards may actually believe they are the “people’s choice.”  SO, in an effort to make things perfectly clear, I’ve decided to go through and address each winner (in the film category only — sorry TV and music, I can’t stomach to even look at you), to let them know whether or not they were chosen by people or mindless, pre-pubescent, acne-ridden germ-incubators, overloaded on hormones teens.

Favorite MOVIE ACTOR
Johnny Depp

No problem, whatsoever, here.  Johnny Depp is one of the most talented actors around.  As far as I’m concerned this guy can’t win enough awards.  He has reinvented himself again and again and again.  My only complaint with Mr. Depp is thus: Maybe a little less Burton — I know you two love each other and I think you make a great team but the formula’s getting a little tired.  I’m sure you’ll be a fantastic Mad Hatter, but it’s just not new anymore.  We get it, you’re both eccentric…

Favorite MOVIE ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock

Sorry Sandie — no can do.  You may have been a qwerky kind of hot in Demolition Man and Speed, but something happened…  Somewhere along the way you started banking off your comedic acting and not your sexiness, which is fine, but you’re not funny.  I’m sure that women across the world would fight against me to defend you, but I’m going to say what all (non-gay) men are thinking: Please stop making movies our ladies want to see.  We’re running out of excuses to miss them.  And “Favorite Movie Actress?”  Not in a million.  You’re just below Tina Fey and barely above that ugly girl from Twilight.

Favorite ACTION STAR
Hugh Jackman

Oh Hugh, you silly bitch.  I want to love you, I really do.  You brought Wolverine to the big screen and for that I will always be eternally grateful.  But your action movies since the two X-Men films have all been, well, crappy: Swordfish?  Van Helsing?  Ex-Men 3?  Ex-Men Origins: (Not-so) Wolverine?  Sorry bud, but you’re not an action star — not yet.  I would give you the People’s Choice for “Best Manly Actor Who Is Probably Gay.”  Action stars are men like Arnold S, Sylvester S, Jean-Claude Van D, and Bruce W.  You’re nowhere near them.

Favorite COMEDIC STAR
Jim Carrey

Apparently Jim made a movie called Yes Man which isn’t so bad, but that’s the problem with this guy lately — all of his movies are not so bad.  None of them are good.  Remember Ace Ventura?  The Mask?  Hell, even Liar, Liar was giggle-inducing.  Somewhere along the line Mr. Carrey went all Eddie Murphy on your fans and forgot what funny was.  Do us all a favor and take a few years off, find your comedic-qi and get back in the haha-saddle.  Jim, you just won a “Best Comedic Star” award on the People’s Choice Awards — that should tell you you’re probably not funny.

Favorite BREAKOUT MOVIE ACTRESS
Miley Cyrus

I have nothing to say about this little attention whore.  I don’t know what movie she was in that helped her “breakout” (apparently she wasn’t famous before), but nobody in their right mind takes her seriously.  Nobody.

Favorite BREAKOUT MOVIE ACTOR
Taylor Lautner

First of all, he was in Twilight.  If that doesn’t establish this farce of an award show, then maybe the competition he “beat” will:  Chris Pine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sam Worthington, Zachary Quinto.  Any one of those men deserves ten times the success of Lautner, if for no other reason than this: they were not in a Twilight movie.

Favorite INDEPENDENT MOVIE
Inglourious Basterds

This movie should win every award it can — it was one of the BEST movies of 2009.  But Independent?  I dunno…  From Wikipedia (which is the most reliable site EVER) “An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced mostly outside of a major film studio. The term also refers to art films which differ markedly from most mass marketed films.”  Best film?  Yes, I’d be on board with that.  But Tarantino hasn’t done indie since Reservoir Dogs…

Favorite Comedy MOVIE
The Proposal

This movie beat The Hangover.  If you haven’t seen The Hangover then do yourself a favor and stop reading this immediately, go buy it and enjoy.  If you have seen it but didn’t like it, you’re an idiot.  If you saw it and saw this and thought this was better you probably produce unhealthy levels of estrogen and lack pubic hair.

Favorite MOVIE
Twilight

Fuck these films.

Now I encourage, as always, you to tell me what you think.  Since most of our readers are not drooling morons in high school, I want to know what you think about the “winners” from last night.  I have a serious sense of dread that our retirement homes will be full of Meyers books, Miley music and models-turned actors — the youth of America scare the shit out of me.

The Future of America…

Mr. Wolff

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